“I want a goddamn address,” Slater says. “Now!”
Detective Schaub jumps up, shuts her laptop and tucks it under one arm.
“I’ll get the techies on it,” she says.
“I want you on it, too. You sit there with them till we know where to send SWAT.”
“Yes, sir,” Schaub says, running from the room.
“It can’t be Gypsy who wrote this,” Draper says.
“We should answer,” Smith says. “Get the bastard talking. Maybe he’ll slip up.”
Slater thinks it over.
“No,” he decides. “Assuming it wasn’t Gypsy who sent this—and that’s assuming a lot for my taste—we want him to stay right where he is. Overplay our hand and he’ll bolt.”
“What do we do in the meantime?” Draper asks.
“Let’s get Aleah Martin down here. She’s Gypsy’s friend. Maybe her only friend. And she has a nice face. I want her in front of a camera.”
“Making a plea?” Smith asks.
Slater nods.
“What if she won’t do it?” Draper asks.
“She’ll do it. She’s convinced herself that the whole thing is her fault. Emily, you set it up. Bring her here yourself. Door-to-door service.”
“Right away,” Draper says.
“And me?” Smith asks.
“You’re back on the hotline.”
“Waste of time. Anybody who knew anything would’ve called by now. All we’re getting is cranks. This morning I had a guy offer to buy the meds Gypsy left behind. Then a woman tells me she saw Gypsy walking around in the background of one of those Club Med commercials. Total garbage. Unless you want to send me to Cancun, in which case…”
“Sorry, Denny,” Slater says. “Next time, stop beating your suspect once he’s unconscious.”
“That was a one-time thing,” Smith says. “The guy spit on my car.”
“I think I hear the phone ringing,” Slater says.
* * *
“Sorry to pull you out of school,” Draper says.
“It’s all right,” Aleah tells her. “Math’s the worst. I wasn’t even listening.”
They’re driving back to the station. Aleah is disheveled, her hair in a sloppy ponytail, the backpack on her lap unzipped with books and papers spilling out the top. She smells strongly of cigarettes. Draper resists the urge to lecture.
“I used to daydream in class, too,” she says.
“I was thinking about Gypsy,” Aleah confides. “She’s pretty much all I think about now.”
Draper sees this as an invitation, a chance to solicit information without conducting a formal interview. Keep it relaxed, she tells herself. Just two girls chatting in a car.
“What’s Gypsy like?” she asks. “I mean, she seemed really sweet on TV, but what’s she like in person?”
“She was…is real sweet,” Aleah says. “She’s a happy person. When we’re together, it’s mostly me complaining. I realize how stupid that sounds—how bad it makes me look.”
“You’re friends. Friends talk. They listen. There are no rules about who gets to complain more.”
“I guess,” Aleah says.
She turns her head, stares out the passenger-side window. Draper wonders if she’s crying, or maybe trying not to. She phrases her next question carefully: “Was Gypsy different around you than she was, say, around her mother?”
“What do you mean?” Aleah asks. “Different how?”
But Draper can’t say exactly what she means. She’s hoping to debunk Slater’s theory that Gypsy might have been involved in Dee Dee’s murder. Again, she isn’t sure why, but something in her needs Gypsy to be innocent.
“I don’t know,” Draper says. “Was she more relaxed? Did she talk about things with you that she wouldn’t talk about with her mother?”
“Like boys?”
“For example…”
“I guess. She always got kind of quiet around Dee Dee. But everyone gets quiet around their mother.”
“Especially if they’re keeping secrets. Did Gypsy share any secrets with you?”
“Just the one. I told the other detective.”
“Her Secret Sam?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I didn’t believe it. I pretended to, but Gypsy knew. I keep thinking that if I’d taken her seriously…if I’d actually listened…”
Draper wants to say something to put Aleah’s mind at ease, but Aleah seems to be heading somewhere important on her own—as if she’s thinking out loud and has forgotten where she is or who she’s talking to. Draper decides not to interrupt.
“Not just about her Secret Sam, but about everything,” Aleah continues. “You said yourself: friends listen. But I didn’t. Not really. Dee Dee was right.”
“About what?”
Aleah squirms a little in her seat.
“I didn’t really care about Gypsy,” she says. “I just wanted everyone to see me as this saint looking after the local cripple. The Mother Teresa of Springfield.”
“Wait, Dee Dee said that to you? In those words?”
“More or less. She said eventually I’d get bored of Gypsy and break her heart. She wanted me to stay away.”
Draper remembers a sound bite from the Anne-Marie interview: It’s like she finishes my thoughts for me. Was there a hint of sarcasm in Gypsy’s voice that Draper is only picking up on now, in retrospect? As in: She finishes my thoughts for me, but not the way I would finish them. Maybe Slater was right: maybe the mother-daughter relationship was more troubled than Draper wanted to believe.
“For what it’s worth,” she says, “you sure sound to me like someone who cares. Detective Slater thinks so, too. That’s why he wants you to talk to the public.”
Aleah’s tone turns anxious: “I always dreamed of being on TV, but not like this. What will I say?”
“Whatever’s in your heart, corny as that sounds. Just pretend the camera isn’t there. Pretend you’re talking straight to Gypsy.”
They’re almost at the station now. Aleah reaches into her backpack, pulls out a hairbrush and a small makeup kit.
“Do you mind?” she asks. “I overslept this morning and had to run for the bus. I must look like I just rolled out of bed.”
“Go for it,” Draper says. “But I think you look very pretty.”
* * *
The department’s video tech sits Aleah on a stool in front of a solid blue backdrop.
“Remember, this isn’t live,” he says. “There’s no pressure. We can reshoot as many times as you want.”
But Aleah is in the zone from the moment he presses Record.
“Gypsy,” she says, “if you’re watching, I miss you every minute and I’d give anything to know that you’re okay. And to whoever’s with Gypsy, please, I’m begging you, bring her home. She needs her medicine. She needs her friends. Imagine being that sick and then the only person who’s ever taken care of you is brutally murdered, and you’re…Gypsy, you must be so afraid. You must be wondering who will look after you now. I will. I promise. Please, just come home. Whoever you are, please just bring Gypsy home so that I can take care of her.”
When she’s done, Draper gives her a long hug.
“That was perfect,” she says.
Aleah pulls away.
“You’re going to find her, right? I mean, you think there’s a chance that she’s…”
“Alive?” Draper finishes. “Yes, I do. We all do. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t put you on camera.”
It’s then that Aleah starts crying. Her sobs are deep and violent, as though she’s been holding in more than she can manage for a very long time.